VALENCE.
A dull town--Cathedral--Jacques Cujas--His daughter--Pius VI.--His
death--Maison des Têtes--Le Pendentif--The castle of Crussol--The dukes of
Uzès--A dramatic company of the thirteenth century.
What a sleepy place Valence is! There was supposed to be a fair there when
I was at Valence, but even that could not wake it up. But the fair was in
a condition of the utmost somnolence itself. Why--I did not suspect till
I reached Vienne, when I found that this latter place had drawn to it all
that was enterprising, startling, attractive, and left only the very dregs
of fairings to poor Valence.
It has a great boulevard, very wide, very inviting, but the spotted boys,
and fat girls, and bearded women, would have nothing to say to it--they
herded to Vienne. It has a vast terrace, planted with trees, where any
amount of stalls might stand, but there were erected there only some very
inconsiderable ranges of boot and shoe tables, and of old cutlery, and slop
clothes.
The cathedral is interesting and fine. The apse at the east end is early
and curious; in place of buttresses receding in stages are Corinthian
pillars tied into the walls they are to support at their heads by caps
laid on them. There is no clerestory to the church, only an arcade of rude
character. The walls of the cathedral are of sandstone, and have been so
gnawed by the wind and rain, that the whole pile looks like a piece of
very decayed cheese. The interior, however, is quite sound, reposeful, and
lovely. That weather-beaten exterior, with its calm sweet interior, struck
me as a picture of many a good Christian, buffeted and worn by storm and
trial without, whose inner self is ever still and untouched.
[Illustration: Cathedral of Valence.]
The church was consecrated in 1095 by Pope Urban II. in person. A new
western tower has been erected and a very fine west entrance in the
Romanesque style, all very good, except the topmost stage of the tower,
which has probably been confided to an inferior architect, who has managed
to mar a work of great promise.
Jacques Cujas, born at Toulouse in 1520, one of the most famous lawyers of
his time, taught at Valence. He was a candidate for the chair of laws in
the university of his native city, but was refused it; a certain Forcadel
was elected instead, whose chief merit seems to have been that he was a
wag. Cujas, on leaving Toulouse, turned, and shaking the dust off his feet
against it said, "Ungrateful fatherland, in you my bones shall not rest."
He kept his word, he died and was buried at Bourges. After he was gone
from the place and his fame was sounded abroad, the university of Toulouse
wanted to recall him, and sent a letter to him nominating him to the
chair of laws. His answer was, "Frustra absentem requiris, quem præsentem
neglexistis." "In vain do you desire him absent whom present you flouted."
At Valence he had eight hundred scholars, who attended his lectures. So
great was the reverence shown for his opinion, that it is said that in the
schools of Germany, when the professors quoted him they were wont to raise
their hands to their caps. And he deserved it. His burning ambition was to
break down the system of injustice to the accused which prevailed in French
courts, where one charged with a crime, if the crime were unproved did not
obtain complete acquittal. He wrote in the cause of humanity against the
abuses of tyranny and ignorance. "Where there is not complete proof of
guilt," said he, "there let there be no condemnation," a maxim observed in
England, but not in France. "What is not full truth," is a saying of his,
"is full falsehood." It was his hope, his prayer, that he might live to see
the injustice of the French laws swept away. That he was not destined to
see. He was a kind professor to all his scholars. When he found that some
were needy, he assisted them with money and books. "I was once a poorer lad
than you," said he to one whom he assisted, "and very grateful if any one
would have pity on me."
[Illustration: Doorway in the house Dupré Latour, Valence.]
He had a daughter, unworthy of her virtuous father. When his scholars were
caught flirting with the damsel, they were wont to excuse themselves by
saying that they were only "commenting on the works of Cujas."
On this the following epigram was composed:--
"Videras immensos Cujaci labores Æternum patri commeruisse decus: Ingenio
haud poterat tam magnum æquare parentem Filia; quod potuit corpore fecit
opus."
In his will Cujas desired that none of his books should be sold to a
Jesuit; and that his library should be sold in parcels, lest any one should
use his ill-digested notes for publication. His behest was obeyed. The
booksellers of Lyons purchased his MSS. and used them as binding for books.
It was not till sixteen years after his death that Alexander Scott of
Carpentras, one of his pupils, collected his works.
At Valence died and was buried the unfortunate Pope Pius VI. who had been
treated with great harshness, and had been loaded with insults by the
French. His was, indeed, a strange story. He began his pontificate in
splendour in 1775, and set to work at once to aggrandise his family, the
Braschi. He was a man of rapacious avarice; of this one glaring instance is
given. He persuaded, or compelled, a certain Amanzio Lepri to constitute
him his heir, and hand over to him the title-deeds of an estate worth
many millions of lire. The natural heirs of Lepri were greatly annoyed at
this, and instituted proceedings before the tribunals, which gave judgment
sometimes for them and sometimes for the Pope, and the matter might have
dragged on indefinitely, had not public opinion begun to manifest itself
with such force that Pius thought it best to agree to a compromise.
In everything relating to himself and his family the Pope showed unbounded
extravagance and ostentation. He had pedigrees manufactured to prove
the descent of his family from ancient Scandinavian heroes, and that of
his nephews, on whom he heaped honours, from the Dukes of Benevento. He
collected all the proudest devices of heraldry to incorporate them as
quarterings into his arms, and this gave rise to an epigram from the pen of
an ex-Jesuit, to this effect: "The eagle belongs to the Empire, the lilies
of the field to France, to heaven belongs the stars--to Braschi what?
Puff."
His extravagance had become so great that the States of the Church were
practically bankrupt long before the French overran and pillaged them. In
his money difficulties he laid his hands on the funds appropriated to pious
works, and so barefaced were his robberies at last, that ten years before
the French invasion he had appropriated 36,000 pounds weight of silver from
the Holy House of Loretto. Then came the crash. This luxurious and splendid
Pope, in his old age, was reduced to be a prisoner, and to be hustled about
from place to place by the French. He had been sent first to the Certosa,
near Florence, with only two companions; then, by order of the Directory,
was conveyed to Parma. There he was allowed to remain only thirteen days,
and, in spite of his age and growing infirmities, was conveyed to the
citadel of Turin. One day was there allowed him for repose, and then he was
carried over the Alpine pass of Mont Genèvre in April to Briançon. There he
was left in peace, but sick and feeble, till the end of June, when he was
hurried away by Gap towards Dijon, but at Valence he became so ill that he
could be no further moved, and there he died on the 29th August 1799, three
days after his arrival.
[Illustration: Doorway and niche in the Maison des Têtes, Valence.]
The story is told that the official at Briançon on receiving him, sent to
headquarters a formal receipt couched in these terms: "Reçu--un pape, en
fort mauvais état."
There is not much of interest in domestic architecture at Valence, with the
sole exception of the Maison des Têtes, which stands near the market-place,
and which is sculptured over with great richness, with heads representing
the seasons, and Roman emperors. The enrichment of this house is in the
style of Flamboyant passing into Renaissance; the façade being in sandstone
has been sadly gnawed by the tooth of Time, has indeed lost all edge to the
sculpture, but within the entrance porch, where protected, the sandstone
retains its sharpness. Curiously enough, no one knows for whom this
gorgeous mansion was raised. It has a pretty interior court, but there is
not much sculpture therein. One cannot quite forgive the original owner and
edifier of the mansion for a bit of ostentation and vulgarity of which he
has been guilty. The house has one portion looking on to the square, but at
the side bends away at an obtuse angle down the street. As the whole façade
was not visible at a single glance, only that portion which was most seen
was sculptured, and that with overpowering richness, whereas the other
portion in the street was left bare to baldness. Wind and rain and frost
are engaged in rubbing down all the decoration, and flattening the surface
of the decorated portion to the simplicity of the other part.
The same destroying agencies are at work upon a very quaint mausoleum, on
the north side of the cathedral, called _Le Pendentif_, which was erected
in 1548 in Classic style as a monument to the Mistral family. It is
quadrangular, and consists of four great piers at the angles, and is
adorned with pillars and with arches in the sides sustaining a vault. In
the rusticated space that fills the sides, quaint sculptures of monsters
and birds of foreign plumage may, or rather might have been traced, the
honeycombing by weather has made them almost undiscoverable. Probably the
structure is more picturesque now in its decay than it ever was before.
Immediately opposite Valence, on the farther side of the Rhone, rises a
bold scarp of sandstone cliff, crowned with the ruined castle of Crussol
above the village of S. Peray at its feet, where is made a very capital
sparkling wine, not at all inferior to champagne. There is also there an
odd château, designed, it is believed, by Marshal Vauban, on the plan of a
mimic fortress, with bastions, curtains, glacis, portcullis, and loopholes.
It is now the residence of the owner of the great vineyards where the S.
Peray effervescing wine is made.
The view of the cliff of Crussol and the village of S. Peray from the
terrace of Valence is spoiled by the river being at some distance from the
base of the terrace, and the flat land that intervenes being covered by
poplars, manufactories and cottages, so that the Rhone is shut out from
sight.
Originally, certainly, the cliff on which stands the cathedral, as well as
that now converted into a promenade, were swept by the Rhone, but it has
thrown its gravels on to the left bank and cut its way farther to the west.
The castle of Crussol belonged to the Dukes d'Uzès, and occupies a headland
formed by the torrent at its side, that has sawn a chasm through the soft
sandstone in its course to join the Rhone. Within the walls may be seen the
remains of a small town that clustered there, much like Les Baux, but now
completely deserted. The family of Crussol was not of much note till Louis
de Crussol gained the favour of Louis XI., and was created his chamberlain,
and governor of Dauphiné. The son married the heiress of Uzès, and with
her the title of viscount passed to their son Charles, whose son Anthony
obtained the title of Duke d'Uzès. There is nothing very remarkable in the
story of the Crussols, but the origin of the Uzès is of romantic interest.
There were three brothers, Ebles, Guy, and Pierre, who had a little estate
and castle at Uzès near Nimes. There they lived together, unmarried, and in
very pinched circumstances. So, one day Ebles said to his brothers that it
was a shabby life for three gentlemen thus to live scraping a few coppers
together whilst all was beautiful beyond Uzès. Let them all three leave the
crumbling walls and leaky roof of Uzès to the bats and owls, and seek their
fortunes in the courts of princes.
His advice was relished, and they invited their cousin, named Elias, a
comic poet, to travel with them. Now Guy, the youngest of the brothers,
and Ebles the eldest, had a pretty gift at poetry, and the second brother,
Pierre, had a pleasant pipe, so they agreed that Ebles should write
_sirventes_, and Guy _chansons_, and that Pierre should sing them.
Moreover, Elias should compose little comedies that could be performed by
their small party, and the profits were to be equally shared between them.
They also put their hands together and vowed to be true and friendly, and
not to separate till they came back to ramshackle Uzès.
So the company started, and went first to the court of Reynald, Viscount of
Albuzoni and of Marguerite his wife, who received them with pleasure, both
of them being fond of Provençal poetry. The brothers and cousin had great
success with their songs and comedies, sent round the hat, and got a
handsome sum. Then, when they had sucked their orange, they went farther,
mounted like paladins, and passed into the territories of the Countess of
Montferrat, who received them quite as cordially as had the Viscount of
Albuzoni. There they sang and twanged the guitar, but having unhappily
composed some satirical verses under the title of "The Life of the Tyrants"
in which the morals and greed of the popes and some of the princes of
Europe were chastised, the Papal Legate complained and threatened them
with public punishment; he finally imposed silence on them, under threat
of excommunication. Then the little company returned home laden with
treasures, but sad at heart; and Guy died about 1230. The company must have
done pretty well, if Guy founded with his share of the profits the family
which later became one of viscounts. I fear dramatic and musical companies
nowadays have not the same success.